TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. Bob Dylan and The Band toured together in January and February of 1974 in a series of 40 concerts in 21 cities, resulting in a live double album called "Before The Flood," released later that same year. Well, now Bob Dylan is releasing a massive 27-CD set called "The 1974 Live Recordings." It captures some of the most raucous rock 'n' roll Dylan has ever made. Rock critic Ken Tucker listened to all 431 songs in this collection and has this review.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MOST LIKELY YOU GO YOUR WAY (AND I'LL GO MINE)")
BOB DYLAN: (Singing) You say you love me and you're thinking of me, but you know you could be wrong. You say you told me that you want to hold me, but you know you're not that strong. I just can't do what I've done before. I just can't beg you anymore. I'm going to let you pass. Yes, and I'll go last. And then time will tell who has fell and who's been left behind. Oh, you go your way, and I go mine.
KEN TUCKER, BYLINE: That locomotive power and rhythm, the headlong, careening pace, the way the vocals are shouted into a gale-force wind created by the guitars, the drums and the yelling of the audience. That's the way Bob Dylan and The Band commenced many dates on their 1974 tour - with a steamrolling version of "Most Likely You'll Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)" (ph). The version I played to start this review is from the January 30 show at Madison Square Garden. Here's how they grappled with "Tough Mama," a rollicking bar-room brawl of a song from Dylan's then-current album "Planet Waves" in a Philadelphia afternoon show.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TOUGH MAMA")
DYLAN: (Singing) Tough mama, meat shaking on your bones. I'm going to go down to the river and get some stones. Papa's in the big house, keeping her running through (ph). Sister's in the big house. Her working days are through. Tough mama, can I blow a little smoke on you?
TUCKER: When Bob Dylan first toured with The Band, then called The Hawks, in 1966, it was soon after he'd gone electric and his folky fan base came out to boo him. Guitarist Robbie Robertson wrote about how depressing it was to go from town to town and face such hostile disapproval night after night. One way to hear the beginning of the 1974 tour, therefore, is as Bob's revenge. He and Robbie and drummer Levon Helm, bassist Rick Danko, keyboardists Garth Hudson and Richard Manuel greet the now-adoring fans with shocking aggressiveness, their instruments blazing, every night a high-noon showdown.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HERO BLUES")
DYLAN: (Singing) The girl I've got - swear she's screaming. Yeah, the girl I've got - swear she's screaming. She wants me to be a hero so she can tell all of her friends.
TUCKER: That's the song that kicked off the entire tour in Chicago, a deep-cut obscurity called "Hero Blues" which was never played again. The standard set list for this tour included such Dylan touchstones as "Like A Rolling Stone," "Lay Lady Lay" and "Forever Young," but there's not a trace of nostalgia in these performances. You have to understand big star acts just did not play their hits live in this manner 50 years ago. The idea had always been to reproduce, to the best of one's ability, the sound of the studio recordings and then toss in some well-rehearsed spontaneity to make the crowd feel it was getting a unique experience. But Dylan and The Band gave new meaning to the term bang for your buck. They detonated, exploded these songs. You might have known what tune you were about to get from the opening chords, but you sure as heck couldn't imagine the frenzy of what was to follow.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LIKE A ROLLING STONE")
DYLAN: (Singing) Once upon a time, you dressed so fine, threw the bums a dime in your prime; didn't you? People call, say, beware, doll. You're bound to fall. You thought they was all kidding you. You used to laugh about everybody that was hanging out. Now you don't talk so loud. Now you don't seem so proud about having to be scrounging around to make your next meal. How does it feel? Oh, how does it feel to be without a home with no direction home, like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone?
TUCKER: There was a fair amount of revisionist thinking about this tour and the years following it, with some commentators saying the music was too loud, rushed and messy, that Dylan was willfully mangling his own songs. Dylan himself contributed to this revisionism by giving interviews putting down the tour. He told Cameron Crowe, it was all sort of mindless. The only thing people talked about was energy this, energy that. The highest compliments were things like, wow - lot of energy, man.
On stage, Dylan sounds, at various times, impatient, cranky, contemptuous - not of the audience but of his own performance. There are moments when he lures the band into matching his own foul mood. Listen to the way Garth Hudson mimics on his keyboard the prissy phrasing Dylan uses to begin a pretty terrible version of "Ballad Of A Thin Man."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BALLAD OF A THIN MAN")
DYLAN: (Singing) You walked into the room, your pencil in your hand, see somebody naked. You say, who is that man? You try so hard, but you don't understand what you're going to say when you get home. You know something's happening here, but you don't know what it is; do you, Mr. Jones?
TUCKER: That was from a Philadelphia afternoon show. Now listen to the far better, more animated, more committed version of the same song he performed the next night in the same city.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DYLAN: (Singing) You walk into the room with your pencil in your hand, see somebody naked. You say, who is that man? You try so hard, but you don't understand what you want to say when you get home because something is happening. But you don't know what it is; do you, Mr. Jones?
TUCKER: Bob Dylan and Garth Hudson are now the only ones alive from the six men on stage here. I had a great time listening to these 27 discs over a number of days, and I never felt I was dwelling in the past. Dylan and The Band's sometimes exhilarated, sometimes exhausted, always-craving-a-change music suits the era we're living in. It's 50 years old, but it's also right on time.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JUST LIKE A WOMAN")
DYLAN: (Singing) Nobody feels any pain tonight as I stand inside the rain. Everybody knows baby's got new clothes. But lately, I see her ribbons and her bows have fallen from her curls. She takes just like a woman. She wakes just like a woman. And she aches just like a woman, but she breaks just like a little girl.
MOSLEY: Ken Tucker reviewed Bob Dylan's "The 1974 Live Recordings." Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, Ta-Nehisi Coates talks about his trip to Senegal, where he reflected on his ancestors' enslavement, and his trip to Israel and the West Bank, where he got a firsthand look at the ongoing conflict. He's best known for his book "Between The World And Me" and his Atlantic magazine cover story, "The Case For Reparations." His new book is called "The Message." I hope you can join us.
Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi, Joel Wolfram and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producers are Molly Seavy-Nesper and Sabrina Siewert. With Terry Gross, I'm Tonya Mosley.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JUST LIKE A WOMAN")
DYLAN: (Singing) It was raining from the first, and I was dying of thirst. So I came in here. And your longtime curse hurts, but what's worse is this pain in here. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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